updated 01:35 pm EDT, Thu April 15, 2010

Droid Incredible to cost $200, preorders April 19

Verizon today formally launched the Droid Incredible as its new flagship. The smartphone is Verizon's fastest with a 1GHz Snapdragon and also the first on the network to pack an 8-megapixel camera supported by twin LED flashes. It should similarly be Verizon's first phone with Android 2.1 and gets HTC's newest version of Sense UI, which brings multi-touch for an Expose-style view of the home screens and a unified friend feed for Facebook, Flickr and Twitter updates.

The full-touch phone shares some of its roots with the Nexus One and has a similar 3.7-inch, 800x480 AMOLED screen, GPS and Wi-Fi. Some of its traits stem from the international Desire and replace HTC's usual trackball with a more advanced optical pad. Verizon is doing relatively little to change the software and mostly plans to launch NFL Mobile and its limited Skype app shortly after the Droid Incredible is ready.

Verizon hasn't made a secret of its target audience and will sell the Incredible for $200 on contract when it ships to stores on April 29th. Pre-orders will start online on April 19th.

The Droid Incredible is Verizon's first high-end Android phone since the Motorola Droid shipped in November and should be the carrier's main opposition to the iPhone for the presumed summer update to Apple's handset. The future iPhone isn't thought to have as sharp a camera but may have a higher-resolution screen, a front-facing camera and a faster processor.

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This smartphone will help bury the Nexus One

even further down. Any Android smartphone that doesn't get traction early on is done for because in two to three weeks there'll be a slightly better Android smartphone being announced.

The next iPhone will have no problem competing with these Android phones. If Apple decides to use its own chip technology, the iPhone will probably have really good battery life which will be huge advantage over the 1GHz Snapdragon.